has anyone ever been hit by a bullet ricochet?

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Yep. I got hit by a ricochet from a .177 caliber Crossman pellet rifle. It hit me about a quarter inch (forehead), above my right eye. It didn't hurt, but it scared the poop out of me.

Also, when I was 14 years old (late 60's), I got shot point blank in the right eye with a crossman BB gun. A buddy & I were out shooting our new BB guns we got for Christmas. My buddy's 5 year old brother was with us. I leaned my gun (cocked, with the safety off), against a fallen tree while I answered nature's call. The little guy picked up my gun, pointed it directly in my face, pulled the trigger, and said, BANG!

The good Lord was with me that day. The BB hit me directly in my right eye, but didn't penetrate it. It glanced off and rested in my eyelid.

The doctor removed it with a magnetic needle, told me how lucky I was, and told my dad, QUOTE: "Two things that should have never been invented are BB guns and motorcycles", UNQUOTE:

So yeah, I've been hit twice. Both were stupid mistakes on my part.
 
"...Lead is very soft and does not bounce back like..." Yeah it does. Got hit(more like it landed on me) by a very well spent lead pellet about 20 yards behind a pin line and under a tent top long ago. The pellet was still round too.
The .45 with the peeled back jacket that hit the inside of my knee and bounced its way down my legs 15 yards or so behind the pin line at Second Chance scratched the hide open. Hit hard enough to hammer home why spectators had to wear shooting glasses.
A buddy of mine took a slice of cast bullet in the forehead while practicing for pins on steel pins. The slice went through the brim of his ball hat, hit his skull. The point bent around to grab his hide. It had to be surgically removed. I wasn't there or I'd have done it for him. Well, I'd have offered. Doing minor surgery while laughing apparently isn't a good thing.
 
i caught a 44 mag ricochet in the left hip after taking a shot at an old fridge, left a nice bruise
 
I've had FMJ 9mm & .45 ACP fragments bounce back off steel plates at 15 meters and hit my jeans legs on several occasions, without ill effect.
Twice I had a .38 spl WC coming straight back & hit me on the forehead, drawing blood in one instance. Nothing serious though. That surprised me because I would have expected lead WC bullets to flatten completely out & lose all their "bounce". Well, they don't.
 
If you shoot any type of competition long enough, SASS, IDPA, etc, you will get hit sooner or later with bounce back or ricochet off steel plates.

Most will just sting and not break the skin, but you'll sure know you have been hit.
 
Last week at a pistol range I visited I was hit about 10 times with backsplash. One drew some blood and a couple left little purple welts. When one bullet came back at us with most of it's weight retained and slammed against the wall behind us we finally called it a day and moved to the rifle range.

That evening as I was emptying my range bag I found the remains of that bullet, it fell into the bag which was on a table against that wall. I would say it retained 75 or 80 percent of it's weight (45 acp). I don't think it could have seriously injured anybody but it sure would have left a mark and possibly need to be dug out from under the skin.

I remember my dad taking me for a drive and stopping to shoot his 44 mag into an abandoned washing machine in a ditch when I was 10. No hearing protecting, no eye protection, and I was shooting from about 8 feet away. I remember they were full metal jacket with a flat front (he called them dum dum's). Luckily no problems as penetration wasn't a problem. I think we were the dum dum's.

Off topic, but I probably fired 5,000 rounds (mostly 22 but also large caliber pistol, rifle and 12 gauge) as a kid without hearing protection. I have a little trouble hearing the enunciation of some women's words, but otherwise my hearing is excellent. I think it may have damaged my hearing in just a small range of the sound spectrum. Or it could just be the result of being marred for 20 years :neener:
 
A couple of years ago we were shooting a bowling ball on top of a piece of steel cylinder which we used to set the bowling ball on. I was shooting 9mm out of a Sig 239. The ricochet hit my eyeglasses and resulted in a scratch. Not too bad. Eye protection is really good.
 
I was in the pits at the 2000 Camp Atterbury .50 BMG Match when a guy down the line was struck by a ricochet. The bullet impacted low into the berm, bounced up and hit the target stand and then down into the pits, stricking the puller in his forhead. Left a nasty goose egg but nothing permament.

As I recall, the guy kept the bullet and show it to people while telling the story about how he was shot in the head by a .50 and lived.
 
At an IDPA match I was an SO and we shot the course the day before the match. We had a target that was a touch low. In back of the target was a tire. We thought that would be OK.

Well, a shooter fired at that target - a lead wadcutter came back and sliced a guy's finger and deflected into his chest - bounced off. The guy was standing in front of me or I would have caught it.

We replaced the tire with a bale of hay.
 
I shot a snapping turtle in the head and the .22 bullet went through his head, bounced off the oak tree and through his head and hit my neck. painful and i picked up the bullet. flattened. 17 years old.
 
I would guess that anyone that has ever done any amount of cowboy action shooting has been hit with bullet fragments bouncing off steel targets multiple times.
 
yep

was at the range one day had my muzzle loader stood upright in front of me for loading , a guy about 5 stalls down was shooting a rifle at a steel plate 100yds away when THWACK!! a fragment hit my rifle , didnt register at first then another one whizzed past us we called down for the guy to pack it in , he was very apologetic and stopped .
still have the ML'er with a nick in the stock , steel plate is fun but you gotta watch your angles :cool:
 
I had a jacket from a .308 or something about .30 cal hit me in the coat and stick in the fabric at Knob Creek once. I also had a .45 bounce off a RR tie and hit me in the chest. It kinda thumped but didn't hurt.

One of my .22s bounced out of what we think was a dent in a swinging steel target and hit my friend in the thigh. It obviously went through the cloth. He was bleeding ever so slightly and we laughed it off. Two days later it was severely infected and *he dug it out with a folding knife*. I'm glad I didn't see that. He's fine now.

Mike D.
 
Tires and 22's

Went to a pistol match and the Range had just redone all their targets and had installed automatic timers and target turners. Each target base was protected with tires so we wouldn't be hitting the steel target posts holding up the frames. This was the first use of the range in a match and it was fine during the slow fire match but when it came to Time and Rapid fire some of the new shooters were sending bullets back at us from shooting low and hitting the tires. I got a bruise and a scratch on my little finger. One guy had a chunk knocked out of his ear muff's and several reported bullets flying close enough past their face that they could hear the bullet. Match had to be stopped and we had to go down and remove all the tires from the range. Red faces but nobody really hurt.
 
When my dad was a kid he heard that a .45 would crack an engine block. He went out to the junk yard and shot one with his 1911. Well, it didn't crack it. It came back and hit him in the groin.
 
Lots of splatter from hard-cast reloads but no real ricochet - all from indoor ranges.

My buddy had a piece of copper jacket strike him in the chin at the indoor range. He had to go to the bathroom to use the mirror to dig it out with his pocketknife. Apparently, some bozo did not understand the reason behind the "No semi-jacketed bullets allowed!" rule
 
I tagged myself in the forehead with a .177 BB when I was a kid, no real damage done.

Recently I was shooting a 10/22 and had some powder residue blow into my eye (wind was at my face). That took a trip to the ER, a tetnus shot, some pain meds, and a nice out patient eye swabbing.
 
Camping

I was sitting in a lawn chair in a "camping area" in the sequoias when along comes a bullet, hits the rock I'm sitting next to, and pulls the hat off my head just like in the movies! It was a .22 and it stuck in the hat.
 
While trap shooting the guy next to me accidently fired his shotgun when he fumbled while going for a thrown bird and most of the shot went across me into the grass, but two pellets skipped off the concrete and hit with enough force to go through my pants and stuck about 1/4 to 1/2 of and inch into my leg. I was pretty pissed off to say the least.

I've also had a 9mm round come back off a steel plate and hit me in the thigh (it didn't penetrate), it kinda felt like someone hummed a rock at me or something.
 
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